Metro Vancouver Restaurant News thread

[jollyburger]

Though sounds like she's a nutjob.

A longtime Vancouver bagel shop is temporarily closing because its owner can’t find enough workers.

Solly’s Bagelry on West Broadway has been operating on reduced hours for months, but has now been forced to shut for a few weeks to deal with what Leah Markovitch said was a crisis facing Vancouver.

“You cannot build a city like a deck of cards and not have a foundation,” said Markovitch Tuesday, referring to the shortage of entry-level workers facing restaurants, food service and retail stores in the city.

“What I’m seeing are workers who do not have transportation to get to work in the early hours. I can’t get a worker to start at 6 a.m. on the weekends which are our busiest days.”

With unemployment at a low and job vacancy rates in B.C. at record highs, Markovitch has been struggling to fill essential but low-skilled positions such as front-counter staff and line cooks. Typically the three stores would have 25 to 30 such staff; nowadays they have less than 10.

“We are past skeleton,” said Markovitch, indicating there may be shortened hours or temporary closures at the two other Solly’s on Main Street and Yukon Street.

Solly’s, which has been in business for 25 years, has weathered recessions and dietary fads. The hiring crunch, however, has hit them hard.

Markovitch has now hired an outside recruiter to help her fill the jobs. Solly’s starting salary is minimum wage during training. After the training period, usually one or two weeks, the pay is bumped up to $14 to $15 per hour plus tips.

Critics, however, question whether the labour shortage is the only reason Markovitch is struggling to find workers. In online reviews and social media, some customers and former employees complained of questionable treatment of staff by the owner.

Zac Vescera, who worked at Solly’s Main Street store for about a year around 2014 said he wasn’t surprised to hear the business couldn’t find or retain workers.

He described an “inhospitable” work environment, where workers were chewed out for minor errors. He also said staff got anxious when Markovitch came to visit because she could be “loud and brash and verbally abusive.”

“The sum of it is that people working there didn’t have a good time and the word has spread, and people don’t want to work at Solly’s anymore,” said Vescera, who eventually left to work at another retail store.

Markovitch does not remember Vescera but defended herself against the online criticism, saying she has many longtime employees who consider her a tough but fair employer.

She said the workplace is also a two-way street, and that she has been burned many times by flaky employees who don’t show up to work or who come “with attitude.”

“I’ve been a good, fair boss but I don’t take a lot of s—t,” she said. “The problem is I call it what it is. But those who are committed will get a lot of pats on the back from me.”

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news...vancouver-bagel-shop?video_autoplay=true

[GeeCee]

Leah Markovitch has a reputation for treating her employees like garbage. There's a post in r/vancouver that goes into detail about it - never moving past the training wage, etc.

She's also been pushing for more TFWs: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c...r-rules-to-help-small-business-1.4474554

Other employers in the city seem to be able to staff their store well enough. I bet she'd do a lot better if she would pay her employees enough money to live in the city and treat them better.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

Leah Markovitch has a reputation for treating her employees like garbage. There's a post in r/vancouver that goes into detail about it - never moving past the training wage, etc.

She's also been pushing for more TFWs: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c...r-rules-to-help-small-business-1.4474554

Other employers in the city seem to be able to staff their store well enough. I bet she'd do a lot better if she would pay her employees enough money to live in the city and treat them better.

Most likely true but there is a severe labour shortage, especially over the last couple of months. I was just talking about this yesterday with someone who works at a career placement agency. Literally only 15 candidates are showing up at hiring fairs which used to field 60-70. I’m not sure why in particular the effect is so pronounced now, as unaffordability has been an issue for years.

[WarrenC12]

Breaking News: — jobs can't attract good workers.

I like how every owner and business organization talks around wages like they aren't the most important thing for these entry-level and no skill/education jobs. You pay more, you will get more.

They are happy to race to the bottom when jobs are scarce, but can't understand the other side of the cycle. Glad to see terrible owners like Leah finally having this stuff catch up with them.

[misher]

Anyone notice that restaurants everywhere are raising prices? Whitespot just increased everything by $1-$2. I'm guessing its correlated to the raises in wages but I assume there must be other reasons.

I miss when $10 got you a good meal.

[240glt]

For what it’s worth, One of the nicest things about travelling to BC is that service pretty much anywhere is so much better than in Alberta. In Edmonton I think we’ve become so used to bad service almost everywhere, it’s almost shocking to go somewhere else and get good service. We’re spent weeks worth of time in both Vancouver and the interior in the past few months and we’ve found the quality or service so much better almost everywhere we went

[SpongeG]

Eating out in Australia is really expensive, granted they have a much higher minimum wage, I think it was $18,75 minimum and if you're over 21 the minimum is just over $21.

But soup was around $13 - $15 in most places, a chicken caesar salad was around $25. Drink sizes at hungry jacks and McDonalds were a lot smaller than here and cost the same or more and most of the restaurants don't give free refills on pop or coffee. Since every place even McDonalds has fancy coffee, you order like a Flat White. And those are around $4. But you don't have to tip but it seems like people do if they have a large party. A pint of beer or cider at all the places I went was $15. Cocktails around the same price. There was a place that had a lunch special, a few options like a burger and a beer was $30 at lunch time. Happy Hour was really popular and you could get some food as low as $10 or drinks for about the same. Groceries on the other hand were priced about the same or less. Dairy products were quite a bit cheaper, you could get a 1kg block of cheese for about $8 - $10, I looked at walmart here and a 1.35 kg cheese was $19.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by misher

Anyone notice that restaurants everywhere are raising prices? Whitespot just increased everything by $1-$2. I'm guessing its correlated to the raises in wages but I assume there must be other reasons.

I miss when $10 got you a good meal.

I work in the industry, food prices have been going way up, bacon has almost doubled in the past couple of years. Things are getting much more expensive.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by misher

Anyone notice that restaurants everywhere are raising prices?

Even Whopper Wednesday is up to, what, $3.79 now (or is it $3.99)?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I work in the industry, food prices have been going way up, bacon has almost doubled in the past couple of years. Things are getting much more expensive.

Any particular reasons why? Drought?

I'm sure you know why dairy is so expensive in Canada.

[SpongeG]

Drought I think is a reason at times, last January there was a tomato shortage out of California so the tomatoes were coming from Mexico and they were really expensive, our supplier told us to try and wait and not order them for a few weeks.

[officedweller]

Meat & Bread to open next to Five Guys in the former Candy Aisle location on Robson:

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/meat-and-bread-robson-vancouver

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I work in the industry, food prices have been going way up, bacon has almost doubled in the past couple of years. Things are getting much more expensive.

Funny how that never seems to get reflected in the inflation figures. One might almost suspect governments are keeping them artificially low...

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Funny how that never seems to get reflected in the inflation figures. One might almost suspect governments are keeping them artificially low...

Presumably SpongeG is reflecting the changing wholesale price, while the inflation figures are based on retail prices. If this is a credible source, the retail price of bacon is currently lower than it was at the same time last year, and in 2016.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by misher

Anyone notice that restaurants everywhere are raising prices? Whitespot just increased everything by $1-$2. I'm guessing its correlated to the raises in wages but I assume there must be other reasons.

While I have noticed the same and $10 barely buys one a proper lunch these days, there also seems to be regional differences. Having just moved back to Downtown from Metrotown, chain restaurants like Subway and some other seem up to 10% more expensive in Downtown.

I guess they have to pay for those excessive retail rents somehow, but it — how expensive anything is getting in here.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Klazu

While I have noticed the same and $10 barely buys one a proper lunch these days, there also seems to be regional differences. Having just moved back to Downtown from Metrotown, chain restaurants like Subway and some other seem up to 10% more expensive in Downtown.

I guess they have to pay for those excessive retail rents somehow, but it — how expensive anything is getting in here.

They've got to cover ever increasing rent, thanks to property values, plus higher wages due to labour shortages and increasing input costs thanks to inflation (3.3% in BC).

The coming era of inflation is going to be a rude shock to those to young to remember the last cycle.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Presumably SpongeG is reflecting the changing wholesale price, while the inflation figures are based on retail prices. If this is a credible source, the retail price of bacon is currently lower than it was at the same time last year, and in 2016.

the case we buy is $57 now. They were around $31 about 2 years ago.

Cheese products are really expensive but they always kind of have been.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by whatnext

They've got to cover ever increasing rent, thanks to property values, plus higher wages due to labour shortages and increasing input costs thanks to inflation (3.3% in BC).

The coming era of inflation is going to be a rude shock to those to young to remember the last cycle.

Retail rental rates in all sub markets of Vancouver are down over the past 3 years...

What has changed is the wages paid to people as it is getting harder and harder to convince people to work in Vancouver for — dollars when the cost of living has grown so much over the last 2-3 years.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

What has changed is the wages paid to people as it is getting harder and harder to convince people to work in Vancouver for — dollars when the cost of living has grown so much over the last 2-3 years.

Global mentioned it's the same for Whistler recently. Most businesses are struggling HARD to find employees when it's so expensive to just rent a room.
Someone suggested we being in foreign workers who will gladly work $15/hour....but fail to calculate that if WE can't afford rent at $15/hr what the hell says they can either??

[SpongeG]

I just spoke to someone about that, their friend in Vancouver from the Philipines was sharing a house with 19 people, there were 20 of them renting a place and something like 5 per bedroom and anywhere else they could sleep. And on top of their expenses, they still manage to send a big chunk of their pay cheque home. She said when they get here the money sounds big compared to home but the expenses are unexpected.